What Are Dental Implants Used For?
Dental implants have become increasingly popular during the past two or three decades due to their effectiveness in aesthetics and functionality. In fact, implant-supported restorations have become the standard of care for treating edentulism (missing all teeth). Due to this increase in demand, we get countless inquiries about the cost of dental implants in our office. We understand that implant procedures can be costly, and it is no surprise that they influence our patients' decision-making when they are offered implants as a solution for missing teeth.
What Factors Determine the Cost of Dental Implants?
The answer to this question is not always straightforward. If you have researched to find out what the cost of a dental implant is, you might not have gotten a direct answer because multiple factors influence the cost of implant restorations. Here are some of those factors,
- Where do you get dental implants?
This is by far the most important factor. There is no set fee for dental implants, so each office determines their fee based on their internal processes and the dental surgeon's skills and comfort with the procedure. Additionally, the city or state where you get the procedure can greatly influence the cost of it. Based on our research, even within the Brooklyn area, the cost of a dental implant can vary immensely from one office to another. We will discuss this in detail a little later in this article.
- What adjunctive procedure do you need for implant restorations?
To qualify for a dental implant procedure, a patient needs to first have the defective tooth or its roots removed. Then he or she will have to wait for the bone to grow into the tooth socket before getting the implant. Many offices do provide same-day dental implants, where they remove the tooth, place the implant, and load it with an implant crown on the same day, which research shows can easily lead to poor aesthetic results and even implant failure, but that is not the topic of this article, and we will discuss it on later topics in detail.
However, sometimes the bone that fills in the socket is not enough. One will need enough alveolar bone width and length to physically hold the tooth implant. If this is not the case, you might need additional bone grafts. So in addition to the implant itself, the patient might need an extraction, sinus lift, or one of many different types of bone grafts.
- What type of implant restorations do you need?
There are multiple types of restoration, from removable implant-supported dentures to fixed full-arch implant-supported porcelain crowns and bridge work to deal with multiple missing teeth, and the cost is significantly different depending on the type of restoration the patient is getting.
- What is the lab cost for making the crown?
This factor is not something the patient is usually concerned with, but at the end of the day, the cost of the procedure for the office will somehow get passed down and affect the patients' out-of-pocket costs.
What Is the Cost of Dental Implants in Brooklyn, Really?
As you can see there are a lot of things to consider before answering this question but to completely simplify our answer, we are not going to discuss adjunctive costs or the lab cost, and we will simply consider the cost of this procedure in Brooklyn, and for a single dental implant, which is the titanium screw that holds the crown plus the crown restoration that is loaded on top of the implant. That is the entire process of replacing only one single tooth, which is the most common reason patients get dental implants.
We contacted a large number of dental offices across and all over Brooklyn, NY to find out what the cost of a tooth implant really is during the late months of 2023, and here are the results from the lowest to the highest cost,
| Office Name | Ralph Avenue Dental Care |
| Address | 2348 Ralph Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11234 |
| Phone | (718) 531-0300 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,000.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,000.00 |
| Total Cost | $2,000.00 |
| Office Name | Broadway Family Dental |
| Address | 372 Stockton St, Brooklyn, NY 11206 |
| Phone | (718) 455-4400 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,500.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,350.00 |
| Total Cost | $2,850.00 |
| Office Name | Heights Dental |
| Address | 107 Joralemon St Suite 1, Brooklyn, NY 11201 |
| Phone | (929) 337-1900 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,350.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,500.00 |
| Total Cost | $2,850.00 |
| Office Name | Glenwood Dental Care |
| Address | 1569 Ralph Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11236 |
| Phone | (718) 251-7167 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | 1,100.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,900.00 |
| Total Cost | $3,000.00 |
| Office Name | New Leaf Dental |
| Address | 2200 85th St #1A, Brooklyn, NY 11214 |
| Phone | (718) 395-9099 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,500.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,500.00 |
| Total Cost | $3,000.00 |
Office Name
| Parkside Dental |
| Address | 325 Ocean Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 |
| Phone | (718) 462-7436 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,750.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $1,750.00 |
| Total Cost | $3,500.00 |
Office Name
| Kevin J. Hansen, DDS, PC |
| Address | 47 Plaza St W, Brooklyn, NY 11217 |
| Phone | (718) 783-0530 |
| Cost of Surgical Placement of Implant | $1,649.00 |
| Cost of Implant Crown | $2,000.00 |
| Total Cost | |
Out of several offices we contacted, six of them refused to provide any pricing, and three did not perform surgical placement of implants. The twenty that did provide that information are listed in this table. Please note that these prices are only based on the information provided to us over the phone and only is valid for a specific moment in time. For the exact cost of the procedure please contact each office yourself. As you can see the gap is $5,000.00 wide with the following statistics,
The Lowest Cost: Ralph Avenue Dental Care: $2,000.00 total
The Highest Cost: Zenith Dental Arts: $7,000.00 total
The Average Cost: $4,265.85
The Cost at 1st Impression Dental: $3,500.00
So Where Should I Get My Dental Implant?
This is the ultimate question of course, and not always easy to answer. Here are the questions and answers that might help you in the process,
Should I get dental implants in Turkey, Mexico, or Colombia?
Definitely not. It is not that there are no skilled dental surgeons in remote areas, but the simple fact is that there is a lot that could go wrong with the procedure, and you will need to have access to your doctor if anything goes wrong or adjustments are needed. Placing dental implants in a foreign country could complicate that. Not only that, implant systems used in other countries might be different than the ones used in the United States, so in case you need any repairs or replacements later on, you might have a hard time finding a dentist who can work with an unknown type of implant. To save yourself a lot of headaches and suffering, just stay away from doing strange things and use common sense. I have personally dealt with those cases, and they do not end well.
Should I choose the cheapest dental office or a dental school?
Again, I would advise against this. I think most of us would rather pay a little more for our health and safety and get quality work. Even though you might receive great care in a dental school, you are being practiced and trained on by students. In offices that charge the lowest fees, the odds are some quality is sacrificed for the quantity. Either cheaper labs or cheaper implants are used, or the surgeon or the prosthodontist might not spend the time needed to deliver quality work. Either way, it is usually not the best idea to shop for a dental implant like you would for a toaster.
Should I choose the most expensive dental office?
I would again have to caution you on that. In my experience, the offices that charge an arm and a leg, typically end up offering the type of work that sits on the lower end of the quality spectrum. The reason for setting such high prices is usually the lack of skill by the provider which makes the process too long, complicated, and expensive. Additionally, if an office is charging exorbitant amounts of money for dental implants, it usually means that they do not perform a lot of them, which means they might not have enough training to perform quality work.
So what should I do?
If you are completely confused and frustrated at this point, don't worry. It is a feeling that most patients shopping for the best tooth implant option have. I do have some suggestions that might help. The short answer is to choose the dentist you trust regardless of the price. If you have a regular dentist that you completely trust and have seen for years, and if he or she offers dental implants, that should be your answer. But what if you do not know one? In that case, the best way to get to know the dentist is to review their social media page. Online reviews are not only confusing and misleading in most cases, they do not paint a great picture of the work. However, with the prevalence of Instagram and TikTok, you should be able to find dentists who post their actual work on their Instagram or TikTok profile. At 1st Impression Dental, we have posted many of our actual implant restorations on Instagram (@1st_imrpession_dental) for our 30k followers, and it is a great tool for patients to see exactly what they should expect. As a general rule, try to stay away from practices that refuse to tell you what their fees are. Transparency is everything when it comes to trust. Why should you go to a dentist who tries to hide information from you?
We also try to keep the cost of care low while offering the highest quality of care we can by choosing the best labs, the best implant products, and getting the latest technologies. Our implant fees are about $1000 less than the average cost in Brooklyn based on the research provided earlier, and that is very much on purpose. Our goal is to offer quality dental implants to as many people as possible in Brooklyn and NYC.
In summary, to find the best implant option at a reasonable cost, do research social media profiles of dentists who offer dental implants. Once you have found a few that match your expectations, then you can contact them and find out which one offers you the most reasonable option. It is usually helpful to have a consultation with more than one dentist about implants because once you place them, removing them is not going to be easy or sometimes possible without causing a lot of bone loss, and please keep in mind that this is a procedure you want to get right the first time.